“Continue sportswashing”
Mohammed bin Salman laughs at Western accusations
By David Needy
September 22, 2023, 10:58 a.m
In a rare interview, Mohammed bin Salman appears unimpressed by the allegations of sportswashing against his country. The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia makes it clear that for him the gross domestic product and tourism count more than human rights.
Football superstars in the Saudi Professional League, the purchase of Premier League club Newcastle United, expansion into golf, dazzling boxing events and Formula 1 races in the desert: human rights organizations accuse Saudi Arabia of being heavily involved in sport to invest and host major events to distract from human rights violations. This is called sportswashing. Now Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the kingdom, has commented on the allegations for the first time. In an English-language film recorded in Saudi Arabia Interview with US broadcaster Fox News said “MBS” that he “didn’t care” about the allegations against his country.
The interview shows how bin Salman even has to laugh briefly at the term “sportwashing”. For him, as “MBS” made clear several times, the only thing that counts is the resulting increase in gross domestic product. “If sportswashing increases my gross domestic product by one percent, then I will continue sportswashing,” bin Salman said in his first interview, which he gave entirely in English.
When asked what he thought of the term, bin Salman said: “I don’t care about it.” Referring to Saudi Arabia’s gross domestic product, the crown prince added that he “is aiming for another 1.5 percent. Call it whatever you want, we will achieve that 1.5 percent.” For the first time, the kingdom’s leadership does not reject the concept of sportswashing. On the contrary: the leadership even admits that this method is a kind of state policy.
Amnesty: “Dark time for human rights”
The investment in sport is part of the country’s Vision 2030: the plan to open and modernize Saudi Arabia to the West and make the economy independent of oil within just two decades. But oil is the main reason why the almost inexhaustible Public Investment Fund (PIF), Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which is responsible for sports investments, is so full. It should be 600 billion euros. The kingdom recently founded a new investment company under the supervision of MBS that focuses exclusively on sports companies. The kingdom is not interested in financial fair play; no one can keep up with Saudi Arabia’s millions. Football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo alone is said to earn around 200 million euros per year.
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other organizations have criticized Saudi Arabia for a series of massive human rights abuses, including the killing of hundreds of unarmed Ethiopian migrants last month, the detention of dissidents and women’s rights activists, the murder of journalist Jamal Kashoggi in 2018 and the Execution of 81 people in a single day last year.
Amnesty International also condemned bin Salman’s statements in the Fox interview to the British Guardian. “Mohammed bin Salman’s rule is a truly dark time for human rights in Saudi Arabia, and no amount of talk about economic vision or expansion into new sporting ventures should distract from this fact,” said Felix Jakens, Amnesty’s head of the Saudi Arabia Focus campaigns. “Not caring about the sportswashing label is one thing, but Mohammed bin Salman also doesn’t seem to care about the peaceful activists behind bars in Saudi Arabia, the 196 people who died last year in… executed in the country, or the personal pain of Jamal Khashoggi’s family, who still desperately hope for justice in his case.”
Sports and tourism
Bin Salman further shared in the interview with Fox News how he experienced the moment when Saudi Arabia defeated Argentina at the World Cup in Qatar. “I was with my family, my brothers, their wives and children,” he said of the game. “We just wanted to get out of this game without any humiliation and then we were surprised.”
Saudi Arabia aims to host the World Cup in 2034. Until then, bake smaller rolls. This winter the FIFA Club World Cup will take place in Jeddah and the Asian Winter Games in 2029 – in the mountainous area of Trojena, which is part of the futuristic planned city “Neom” currently being built in the desert (cost: about 500 billion US dollars). Dollar). Bin Salman said this approach is central to the country’s goal of becoming one of the top ten travel destinations in the world.
Asked whether football would give his country a kind of new identity, “MBS” replied: “If you want to diversify an economy, you have to work in all sectors: mining, infrastructure, manufacturing, transport, logistics – all of that.” Part of it is tourism. “And if you want to develop tourism, part of it is culture, part of it is the sports sector, because you have to create a calendar,” explained the Crown Prince.
The sports sector and other economic sectors go hand in hand, for example when stadiums (or entire cities) are built for the events. Human rights organizations warn that in Saudi Arabia, like in Qatar, there are no workers’ unions and the many migrant workers have to work in poor conditions. Many citizens of Saudi Arabia, where there is a huge gap between the ruling family, the rich and the poor, also suffer: More than 20 percent of the 32.2 million Saudis live in poverty and have little benefit from the sporting events in the country .